Prot challenge mode gold, talent doubts

hi, I'm going to run CM's this week to reach golds but I have some doubts about what talents are more viable.

- in the first tier actually I'm using Long arm of the law. I think this is better for kiting adds and avoiding shit than Pursuit of justice.
- in the third tier, I usually go with Eternal flame since 5.4, but I'm CM's probably I will be dead if I go "nude" to a group of enemies before I get 5 stacks of Bastion of glory to heal myself. considering my healer is a holy pally I prefer Sacred shield.
- in the fifth now I'm using Divine purpose, but I think those adds will screw me up if I doesn't use Holy Avenger.
- in the last tier I chose Light's hammer. snare, healing, nice AoE DPS boost... I believe there's no reason to use Holy prism here.

what do you think of my choices?

PS: if you have any tricks or points based on your personal experience, I admit suggestions

Long arm of the low seems like the default one in first tier with speed of light being situational. On 3rd tier i used eternal flame myself and i didnt have any big issues with without ss. Now when it comes to 5th tier, i think there are some pulls in cm that makes HA a really good choice and also, same reason why light's hammer is strong, you usually have 2-3 big pulls that you need that extra survivability dps and healing.

Personally I always take Speed of Light for CMs. Long Arm is nice for kiting, but there's very few instances that really require kiting for extended periods of time.

I've done a decent bit of experimenting in 5.4 with SS and EF for CMs. I've found that the EF ramp up time is just too high. It takes too long in 463 gear to get 3 or 5 stacks of BoG. By the time you get that high you're almost guaranteed to be out of danger. With SS you can precast it on yourself before the pull, then refresh it once you gain some vengeance.

I always take Holy Avenger. HA just works really well with the large style of pulls you'll do in CMs. Typically its a single large pull followed by a boss. The break between pulls gives you enough time for HA to come back up.

Lights Hammer and Holy Prism are both good choices. Holy Prism (when self targeted) is very good for self healing and AoE snap threat. The lower CD means you can use it often. If you're going for record setting times, then you'll likely want to take Light's Hammer.

For general advice. I'd say pick up a Battle Horn and Rod of Ambershaping if you have the time to farm them. The Battle Horn makes pulling easier on a number of CMs (Stormstout, Scholo and SM to name a few). The Rod is good for on the run CC.

Also don't forget to use Glyph of Holy wrath for any CMs that have elementals.

I agree with Kebren, holy avenger all the way for challenge modes for me. If anything is going to spank you its going to be a trash pull and HA is a huge on use cooldown. Divine purpose also sucks at low haste levels.

The only thing I'd add is the blinding light glyph can save your bacon sometimes. As mentioned, holy wrath is OP for instances like Jade Serpent.

hi, I'm going to run CM's this week to reach golds but I have some doubts about what talents are more viable.

- in the first tier actually I'm using Long arm of the law. I think this is better for kiting adds and avoiding shit than Pursuit of justice.
- in the third tier, I usually go with Eternal flame since 5.4, but I'm CM's probably I will be dead if I go "nude" to a group of enemies before I get 5 stacks of Bastion of glory to heal myself. considering my healer is a holy pally I prefer Sacred shield.
- in the fifth now I'm using Divine purpose, but I think those adds will screw me up if I doesn't use Holy Avenger.
- in the last tier I chose Light's hammer. snare, healing, nice AoE DPS boost... I believe there's no reason to use Holy prism here.

what do you think of my choices?

PS: if you have any tricks or points based on your personal experience, I admit suggestions

Hey there,

I just did CMs last weekend on my pally and they went smooth.

- In the 1st tier I just used SoL. It's great when you have to use invis potion. Just remember to use it prior to using your potion
- EF + DP is good enough. There are a couple of thrash pulls in which you are in danger to die. Start with Divine Prot + glyphed AoE stun. If that's not enough pop one of your bigger def CDs. Also, tell your DPS to keep enemies stunned after yours fades out. Monks are great with their RoP/Leg Sweep.
- I use Light's Hammer everywhere and didn't notice a need to change it for CMs

Horn is a great item to have as Kebren already said. In Brewery it's great if one of your DPS has it too so they can use it in the 1st pull when you take the 5 big monkeys. Using horn in the room with the 3 monkeys removes the damage buff from them.

One last general advice is to pull big packs of mobs via LoSsing them so you can get them in a nice pile for AoE. Wish paladins had mass grip too

I liked Light's Hammer a lot for CMs, just because I felt like my paladin lacked AoE threat in certain big pulls, for example, the one in Scarlet Halls when you have to run up with the huge shield in front of you and get stunned for 1-2 secs after..theres more, but that's the first that came to mind...plus the heals are nice. Other than that, tier 1 SoL just makes more sense since you can really control it. SS>EF for sure. Thats about it, you're a paladin, just faceroll through them. I never played a prot paladin in my life, and got 90 and did some stupid heroics and jumped right into CMs with little knowledge of the class at 90 and just plowed through them.

Light's Hammer is much more valuable than Holy Prism for prot, in my opinion. LH with high VG can do a lot of damage on the important AoE pulls, whereas Hprism may be similar amounts of damage throughout the instance, it won't provide as much burst when it matters - killing those big AoE packs that will wreck you.

Also, remember you can switch out talents as long as their not in CD, don't be afraid to switch to ES right before a boss pull to get that extra DPS on the boss. For example, Lillian Voss in Scholo, every bit of DPS matters so if you can go ES for that(dependant on if you need LH for the big AoE pull of the room before it) it may be valuable.

HA > DP as well, HA provides another damage mitigation cooldown and is very valuable as a CD for big AoE packs. Typically you will have downtime between the massive packs and CD's will reset.

finally I got them all. the most difficult part I've found was pulling the 3rd boss of Siege of Niuzao Temple with all of those adds around him. I wiped one time because I got nervous kiting those bugs knowing we had done more than half of the challenge, but luckily the next try was pretty good.

curiously I did the first big monkey pull of Stormstout Brewery in my 1st run, probably because my mind knew that if I did wrong at the start, I would reset the instance without any problem. also I got the best gold time of a Prot Pally in Stormstout Brewery on my server (medium pop) ^^

I didn't used Sacred Shield, Divine purpose or Holy Prism at all. with the actual gear is very affordable for anyone that takes it seriously.